Interior Design Game

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Turn spring cleaning into an opportunity to spend quality time with your teen by helping her redecorate her room. She'll get to try her hand at interior design by drawing out a plan, taking measurements, and even writing out a budget for her room redesign. This is a great bonding activity, giving you a valuable chance to hang out with your teen while teaching her organizational skills and fostering her creativity!

What You Need:

New pillows, lamps, picture frames, etc. (optional: try having her write up a budget, then going shopping for these things together)

What You Do:

Start by having her take "before" images of her room with the digital camera. After the redesign, it'll be fun to compare "before" and "after" images of her room!

Now have her measure the length and width of her room and all of her furniture with the tape measure.

Help her draw out a blank plan of her room on a sheet of graph paper. To keep it to scale, convert feet to inches. For example, if the room is 12 feet long, draw it as 12 inches long on the plan. Be sure to mark where the windows and doors are.

On a separate sheet of graph paper, measure and draw out rectangles that represent all of the pieces of furniture in her room. Again, make sure the rectangles are to scale with the actual pieces of furniture.

Cut out the furniture rectangles.

Now come up with a new furniture arrangement for her room. Invite her to arrange the furniture cut-outs in her room plan to come up with a brand new set up.

When she's satisfied with the new set up, carefully rearrange the real furniture according to her plan. Never try to lift or move anything you think is too heavy for you and always be sure to lift using the correct posture.

After the main pieces of furniture are in place, think about the decorative items in the room such as books, photographs, candles, and things stacked on shelves and the dresser. Help her purposefully arrange these things around the room, mixing in the new pillows, picture frames, lamps, etc. to give her room a new and fresh look.

Now that her room is rearranged, take an "after" photo of her room with the digital camera, then compare the "before" and "after" photos together. Talk about color, balance, and the arrangement of decorations. How does she like the new look? How does it compare to her old room?